sorry to butt in Harsh just can't help myself[interesting discussion]...
agree your discus looks a little off in eye proportion. the blue one is not a blue diamond.
looks more like a cobalt or reflection D.
blue diamonds do not have the black band over the eyes.

The pb[pigeon blood] is not hormoned. colour fed yes. normally beta carotene to give that orangey colour. quite harmless.it will fade and the real orange colour will come out once it's a year old or so.

hormones[methyl testosterone] are usually use on spotted juvenile fish to bring out it's spots earlier for better turnaround[sales!]. you can spot this with abnormally defined spots in a small 2in fish. the red ring around a fish around the fish 'D' section and also long thread dorsals in females.
it is also used to make young blue diamonds' blue colour come up quickly.[sales again!]
hormoned fish often are stunted because the effect of hormones speeds up their maturing age [puberty for us!].
sometimes they get liver failure and die from secondary infections which try to treat to no avail.[aka 100day fish]

this unfortunate practice of hormoning fish is not limited to discus. so goes for colouring up fishes etc. some are harmless in small doses but some are not. eg. CR6... [/b]

The LFS guy will regret giving me these and saying that they were top quality. I think i'll get his a** kicked now. My uncle is in the Indian Forest Services and i think it's time for him to get a little taste of Indian Beaurocracy.

Thanks Stan for the neat peice of information.
are you saying that the PB's are just coloured not hormoned?
The LFS guy will regret giving me these and saying that they were top quality. I think i'll get his a** kicked now. My uncle is in the Indian Forest Services and i think it's time for him to get a little taste of Indian Beaurocracy.

@Harsh,
I think that is not fair!
The poor guy himself will not be aware of what he sold you - let it settle down a bit (don't get hyper)
A hormoned discus if not kept on hormones for a long time will naturally loose the artificial colours as Beta suggested and will start developing their natural colours - which I suppose are not bad!
Yes, as far as the stunted growth is concerned - the fish does take up normal growth once they get proper care - only one thing you should be concerned of at the moment is that none of them are 'doomed'
A doomed discus will look shrunk in the head and belly portion - if that is the case return them and take your custom elsewhere.

@stan,
good post!

Quote:

The pb[pigeon blood] is not hormoned. colour fed yes. normally beta carotene to give that orangey colour. quite harmless.it will fade and the real orange colour will come out once it's a year old or so.

stan, I'm in this trade since 1989 and know most tricks of the trade - I can tell you that a cr6 is better known in the trade than the carotene pigment as it gives a faster result - the reason it looks orangish is because the poor LFS guy could not feed it the hormone (due to lack of knowledge of the hormone or could not afford the price) and it is slowly loosing the hormoned colour - Harsh, just enquire how long was the fish with the LFS and how did he house the fish? did he over-stock them or were they in a comfortable sized tank?
I think the stunted growth is not an issue as the fish can recover soon from the after effects of the hormones IF it is not kept for a long time on hormones - hope for the best!
In general if the fish are eating food and are active - they will make it!
One more point of caution is try to put them in a bare-bottom till they are a bit bigger to ensure proper care and ease of maintainence!
HTH

The pb[pigeon blood] is not hormoned. colour fed yes. normally beta carotene to give that orangey colour. quite harmless.it will fade and the real orange colour will come out once it's a year old or so.

@Aquascapes
The fish were at the LFS tank for at the most 2Hrs. he housed 14 of them in a 10G tank along with 25Kuhli loaches and 36 Tetras (DYED !!). I only have one tank now and it is well planted after 5-6 tries to planted tanks so i'll not be turning it into a barebottom tank. They are feeding like crazy (on bloodworms, not so interested in the bits) and seem normally active to me. they are not showing dark or dull skin which AFAIK is sigh of high ammonia.
One thing, 1 or 2 of them were like scratching themselves against plant leaves(not a lot but a couple of times) is some thing wrong ? i observed them closely and they looked OK to me.

and i don't think any of them can be categorized as doomed because they all eat good and are equally and normally active, just one red is skinnier than the rest other than that they all seem good.

wow...opened a can of worms. ...but this is the only way to stop[minimize] the practice of hormoning and over colouring fish.

Harsh, as aquascapes said , the lfs guy may know nothing of what the breeder has done. don't hurt the seller! but you can still let him have a piece of your mind!

Aquascapes, i'm from malaysia and i can tell you honestly i know at least 75% or more of the tricks in one year after a joining a group of serious discus enthusiasts. singaporean, indonesian breeders included.
I have had long chats with Andrew Soh [author of Discus the Naked Truth, discus breeder for over32 years] over in Kuala Lumpur and basically what he says does confirm my suspicions. Breeders are a crafty lot. they do what they do to survive. in our case the flower horn craze was disastrous for the discus industry locally...so the tricks come out.

Andrew himself[singaporean] admits to using hormones to sort out the fish and cull. this is standard practice to avoid wasting time and resources on variants/throwbacks nobody wants.

As was said... the practice of hormoning a little is ok...as long as the breeder knows what he's doing. overdoing it leads to stunted and 100 day fish.
yes CR6 is pretty expensive but one dose is enough to get the fish nice and ready for sale. [CR6- the manufacturer claim it has no hormones. a synthetic colour enhancer mainly for red fish] we are is suspicious of this claim as as soon as we use it. the blue in the fish comes out. just like using hormones...so we avoid it.

others include XXXXXbits. the claim they use natural colour enhancers which look suspiciously like astaxanthin[man made].
the list is goes on but there's little to regulate this.
it's only fish to some people.

The pb[pigeon blood] is not hormoned. colour fed yes. normally beta carotene to give that orangey colour. quite harmless.it will fade and the real orange colour will come out once it's a year old or so.

astaxanthin is a bit pricey compared to beta carotene. but nevertheless to ensure sales you can never doubt it's being used. i've bought beef heart laced with beta carotene and the fish look orangey just like the pb Harsh has posted.
not a lasting thing and BC isn't harmful and the colour fades and the real onrange colour does kick in once the fish matures.

i'm not familiar in your local scene but over here the usage of Astaxanthin pretty rampant. there's carophyll yellow and carophyll pink[mix of yellow and asta]
some breeders we visit we call it the chinese new year place...seeing red everywhere.

Anyway it's good to discuss this with you guys and get to know the scene over in India where little is known from our side of the world not that we don't try...

others include XXXXXbits. the claim they use natural colour enhancers which look suspiciously like astaxanthin[man made].
the list is goes on but there's little to regulate this.
it's only fish to some people.

This is some new info regarding XXXXXbits.
thanks

Last edited by harsh on Sat Apr 01, 2006 11:02 am; edited 1 time in total

the do have a breeder version which gives the fish a mild yellow colour.

the regular and breeder bits i do feed once awhile to keep your discus interested in dry food because when the need arises that is the best dry food you can give your fish when you're on holiday or when they are sick as it does not foul the water as bad as meat/shrimp recipes.

without enhancers most of the new strains you see on the market are actually very pale and colourless save a few. the true colour strains retain the colour feed for a very long period. my melons are still red after i stopped feeding them bits or beta carotene food for two years.

the key is to minimize the the colour feeds. i used to see this as an evil ploy for sales but right now i see that it's important for the hobbyist to know what they are buying and make a stand on whether they can accept what's being sold to them. nowadays i avoid overly coloured fish...but once awhile can't resist. still silly i guess but it's the coloured ones that are more attractive. :duh: my policy now is as long as they're not stunted or sterile... i have a few local breeders on the banned list...

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